Recent research by Finaccord has shown that there are now globally more British expatriates than another other country apart from India and China. They reckon there are around 1.16 million British expats living in other countries though the UK seems to also be very receptive to expatriates from other countries with around 1.19 million currently living in the UK. Over the next 5 years they expect these numbers to grow, “By 2017, Finaccord forecasts that foreign expatriates living in the UK will have reached around 1.30 million while UK expatriates abroad will number approximately 1.21 million” said Tobias Schneider a consultant at Finaccord.
Finaccord defined an expatriate as somebody planning to be resident in another country for at least 12 months and a maximum of 5 years. The company was able to analyse 30 inbound and 25 outbound countries which had been selected on the basis of their economic importance and their significance in the context of the expatriate market.
There were found the be variations between the expats being ‘imported’ to the UK and those being ‘exported’:
| UK expatriates residing abroad | Foreign expatriates living in the UK | |
|---|---|---|
| Individual workers | 58.3% | 46.4% |
| Retired expatriates | 23.5% | 3.1% |
| Students | 4.6% | 38.4% |
| Corporate transferees | 4.0% | 5.1% |
| Other expatriates (defined as non-employed spouses and children) |
9.5% | 7.1% |
Presently the UK is the world’s most popular destination for international students meaning that it receives more funding from overseas than that of any country in the world apart from the US.
India represented the largest number of expatriate residents in the UK followed by citizens from Poland and China. Australia has the largest number of British expats living there followed by Spain and the UAE. However the number of retired British expatriates living abroad has dropped considerably since the start of the financial crisis.
Globally Finaccord reckon there are around 50.5 million expatriates and they expect this to grow to around 57 million by 2017, growing at a compound rate of 3%. Most of this growth will be due to students followed by individual workers and retired expats.
